Techies, School me on WiFi extenders

[jps4jeep]

I'm not positive that this is what I need, but the WiFi in my house is kind of limited. With three kids all having Kindles and ipods suckng up the WiFi as well as fire stick, smart TV and PS3s, the amazon echo only will work when in the same room as the router... which is lame.  Pretty much everyone knows more about computering than I do, is a router extender what I should be looking for and if so, any recommendations?  Background, our router was replaced by Verizon last year with a new one that is 5g or something like that.

[Bluerocket]

Are you using the 1"2.4ghz or 5ghz feature when having signal strength issues?

[jps4jeep]

How do I tell?

[Twisty]

I think I'm having the same issues at my house.  I have an Arris surfboard modem/router combo.  I see two networks on my phone; one ends in -5G.  My phone connects to the -5G and has good signal.  All other devices can't see the -5G network and have crappy range.  Like anything more than 15' away and there is no signal.  The laptop is probably close to 10 years old.  The e-reader tablet is probably 3 years old.  My phone is also 3 years old.

Im thinking a booster for the e-reader and it's time to update the laptop.  Still frustrating though...especially when you need to look something up quickly.

[Bluerocket]

Generally 2.4ghz has better signal penitration through walls etc.  5ghz has less interference but is less good for signal. 

It's not trivial to design a wireless network, probably the next thing to look at is the quality and location of signal and interference. 

You can run a multi-wap system to achieve good coverage, if that is i fact the problem.    I'm not entirely convinced it is yet. 

[Ian]

[jps4jeep]

SO I have what Tim has, two signals, one says 5g and the other does not.  AT the end of the day, I would prefer not to move my router and I would like the echo to work in my kitchen.

I have tried it on both the 5g and non-5g signals and the result is the same.

[Twisty]

I went into my router configuration menu, and a screen popped up about optimizing connectivity.  I clicked yes, and it greatly improved my signal.  I no longer see the -5G network, but now there is a single 2.4ghz network that is much stronger for all devices.  I'll try to see what I changed and post it here.